Ladders to Clouds
by Flashing The Floods
Summary: So much can happen in such little time. If only they weren't here. Kim/Violette femslash. Hunger Games AU. Crappy crap. Crap.


**Author's Note: So I'm just chilling out in my bed right, zoning out to The Hunger Games on the movie channel and all of a sudden it hits me; Kim/Violette isn't canon. And then I just stopped for a second, 'cause no, legit, I dig that ship so deep I psyched myself into thinking it's canon. It didn't occur to me that it wasn't until I watched the cannon go off for the chick in District 6 ._.**

**So that turned into this crappy, disjointed, pointless, worthless, craptastic piece of bleh. I...Really need to stop writing fanfics o_e'**

**Actually written before that last one HG AU I posted, and considerably shorter because...Well I dunno why. Intended obscurity, maybe? Probably possibly, perhaps conceivably. Title is a reference to The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus**.

* * *

_there is turmoil out there  
carnage, rambling  
what is to do but dig  
dig bones out of earth_

_—bjork_

.

When she is reaped, Kim's initial reaction is not shock. Nor is it dread. She realizes that she has expected this for a long time. She calmly struts up to the podium to accept her fate from an offensively cheerful Boris. She faces the crowd of tired, resigned frowns and thinks, _I can win this._

She is all compact muscle, she's sturdy, and District 11 is far from paradise and she knows how to live on little.

That's what Kim really has on her side, she knows how to_ live_. She's confident in that, and it's more than enough confidence to thrive on.

And then the male tribute's name is called and it's Dajan, and _oh god_, she knows him from school! She's lightning-struck with the brutal reminder that she doesn't just have to live to win. She has to _kill_. She has to kill Dajan and anyone else in there, because there's only one victor.

He catches her eye and gives her a terse, hollowed out smile.

If she's going to survive, she has to eliminate that smile.

She looks away, numb, numb, numb and crumbling inside. Because how, how can she just kill!? How can she snuff out the lives of other human beings!?

But then there's the few minutes she's allotted to say goodbye to her family before departure, and she sees the look on her mother's face.

She's not numb anymore, she's determined again. Even if she doesn't know how she's going to kill, she knows that she can and she will.

.

In the training center, she gets to see each object of competition (it's best not to think of them as people) up close. The male from District 1 has somewhat spiky black hair and harvest gold eyes, and is oddly serene, in comparison to the cocky obnoxiousness of most Careers. The girl on the other hand, fits the trope.

Her eyes have blue and pink in them and they're frankly the most unique Kim has ever see. She isn't loud, but she has an infuriating look of triumph on her face, as though she's already won and it grates on Kim's nerves. The pair from District 2 have expressions that mirror her's, although they actually _are_ loud.

The guy from District 3 is a scowling redhead and the girl has very, very long hair that looks like a snowfall and Kim can't help thinking that she'd be safer if she cut it. It goes so on and so fourth, and none of them particularly stand out to Kim yet — she still has yet to observe the extent of their skills — but one. The girl from District 6.

She's petite with eyes like ashes and hair like amethyst and pale fingers that nervously knit together. She sees Kim eyeing her and pretty rose dust graces her cheeks. She's the most beautiful girl Kim has ever seen, and this dismays her greatly. If only, if _only_ this wasn't how they had to meet.

When lunchtime comes around, Kim has impressed her competition in the ropes course and the hand-to-hand combat station and more subtly with the edible plants station. It's good, but it isn't enough. She needs a weapon and decides that a spear is the one of her choice.

Spears are good for throwing and for stabbing and they're easy enough to make if you've got the right stick and rock, if she can't get one from the cornucopia. She's watched every game every year, she knows the immediate dash to get weapons at the cornucopia is always a bloodbath, so if she can make her own weapon, then—

"Excuse me."

She turns to the owner of the whispery, hesitant voice that has pulled her from her thoughts. The most beautiful girl she has ever seen, once again, standing there with her eyes downcast and her small hands (gentle hands, fragile hands, hands not meant to kill) on the back of the dining chair next to Kim. "Can I sit here?"

"You can sit," Kim tells her tartly. "That's all." She can see the others making alliances and that is one thing she is not going to do. She's going to go it alone, because she can trust herself and she can't trust anyone who is going to aim to kill her at some point anyway, not even for a second.

The beautiful girl nods and sits next to Kim. It's all she does.

.

Kim doesn't talk to her again until the third day of training. By then she knows her name is Violette and she wishes she didn't know that, because attaching a name to the beautiful person Kim doesn't want to hurt in the first place makes it that much harder. She vainly hopes that someone else slaughters this girl before she has to, and then she's disgusted with herself for hoping such a gruesome, selfish thing.

However, on the bright side, if once could indeed call it that, it's very likely her hope will be reality. Violette is unskilled in all things combative and those with that issue scarcely ever last long. She's in the snare-setting station when Kim speaks to her again, tying together a loop that's much too sloppy, Kim knows.

Kim has made snares in the past to catch rodents before they could munch through her father's garden, so she crouches down next to Violette out of sympathy and takes the twine out of her hands.

"Not like that," Kim murmurs as ash pools inquire. "Watch me, I'll show you how." She undoes Violette's messy knot and shows her the proper way. She knows she shouldn't be helping the competition survive, but as hard as she tries to be callous, her heart goes out the girl.

Violette doesn't have anything else on her side. If Kim can help her foster just one little strategy, then it's only fair.

"Thank you," Violette breathes, eyes sparkling and dumbfounded. She unwinds another twine coil and uses Kim's as a model, fingers working out their tremble.

"Don't mention it." And then Kim gets up and walks away, biting her lip as she takes a practice spear. She tries to imagine not imagining Violette's beautiful face on the dummy she impales.

.

When the countdown is finished, Kim does not loiter for the bloodbath. She darts into the thick woodland admits the echoes of cannons and battle cries and just keeps going, going, _going_ until she can't go anymore. Branches slash her face and leaves and twigs crunch underfoot, but she never stumbles. By the time her breath is gone, so are the screams.

Kim leans against a birch and sinks down to the roots, closing her eyes for a moment. She rests, but not for long, because there is no time to rest when everyone around you is trying to kill you and the elements are open to aiding them.

When her moment of composure wanes, she stands and sets out to search for any of four things: water, food, sharp rocks, shelter.

She doesn't find either of the former, but she does find one and a half of the latter. She finds a rock jagged and sharp enough to cut on one side, and proceeds to sharpen it against a duller rock until the other side is also as sharp and it ends in a keen, fatal spade. She also finds a massive pine tree with lower branches that fan out wide enough to belly-crawl under and sleep beneath.

It's very weak as far as shelter goes, for any tribute could find her there if they simply part the branches. However at this point in time, the rays of a spurious sunset are bathing the landscape an orange the shade of diluted bloodstains and it will soon be as dark as her ebony tresses. Too dark to be sure of her surroundings, too dark to look for something safer.

She finds a suitable, durable stick in her feeble sanctuary, just a little under half her height. Kim supposes that just like the tree, it's as good as she's going to get, so she rips a narrow strip from her sleeve and uses it to secure her spearhead.

_Who will I have to use it on first?_ she can't help wondering.

.

Grass is hardly nutritious, but Kim isn't certain about how hunting and/or forging will go, so it becomes her breakfast anyway.

The morning sun that twinkles in the sky is just a little too precise. So is the sky's blue hue. _They couldn't be any faker_, is what she thinks right before the cannon goes off again. It's the girl from District 12. Kim isn't sure whether she should rejoice in having one less opponent, or mourn for a young life severed before its time.

She settles on neither, and instead just hopes that the end was quick, hopes she didn't suffer.

Kim treks through the bracken with her spear ready and eyes alert. She searches for the necessities she's failed to acquire and yet again fails to acquire by the time the sun has sunk to mid-afternoon.

Feeling much more frustrated than frightened by this, she grumbles under her breath and retreats to her pine tree. She'll rest a little while before setting out again, and then she'll head in the opposite direction.

She doesn't realize she dozed off until voices like fléchettes pierce the air. Kim snaps into wakefulness like someone tossed a bucket of ice-water over her and peers out from between the branches, grip tense on her spear.

Two tributes stagger into view, the male form District 8 heavily supporting the District 3 guy. Kim can't tell exactly what happened, but District 3 has to be a goner. A ribbon of his scalp is raggedly peeled back and she's sure she sees skull. That half of is face is a curtain of crimson and the lower part of his torso visible to her is so throughly soaked, until she looks closer, she thinks his (gray) shirt is supposed to be that color.

As if sensing Kim's thoughts on his condition, District 3 simply drops to his knees and District 8 can't even keep him upright as he gags blood into the grass.

"Fuck," rasp ruby-glistening lips. "I can't keep going, Lys."

"I'm sorry," District 8 whimpers pitifully, voice cracking and trenchant, panicked sobs escaping. "I'm sorry, Castiel, I should've been faster!"

"Quit your crying." With that, District 3 half-slumps half-declines to the ground, patting his blubbering ally on the cheek with a brusque touch that leaves ruby smears. "You're so loud, you're gonna give us away. If you have to be loud, at least sing. You're better at that."

To Kim's tremendous surprise, he actually starts singing. Kim doesn't know what to compare his voice to, but it's bizarrely soothing. As she listens to the dulcet words (seems to be a lullaby of some sort), she irresistibly recalls a memory from childhood she hasn't thought of in years. She was just a tiny thing at the time, full of curiosity and short-lived wonder, when she came across what was likely the most lovely scene she'd ever been subject to.

A cluster of bright blue butterflies all perched upon a tree trunk. Hundreds of them, wings delicately fanning. There were so many of them that Kim couldn't even see the wood. And they were so blue, so, so brilliantly _blue_. True blue, not like the too precise, plastic blue of the arena's sky. She remembers the butterflies had to be sprayed with pesticides so they wouldn't harm the crops.

She recalls them dropping off the tree in little groups, wings forever stilling as they flittered sickly to the earth.

She recalls this as the cannon goes off and District 8's singing crumbles into shattered sobbing.

.

Kim kills him. His profile is right to her, neck perfectly exposed and he has no idea that she's there. It is a golden opportunity to do the deed, so she whips back the branches with one hand and launches the spear with the other, and District 8's sobbing ends as his jugular bursts into a bounteous fountain of blood. There is absolutely nothing ceremonious or significant about it, but as he dies, she feels a little bit of herself die too.

Her feelings matter little as cannon fire erupts in the atmosphere.

When Kim retrieves her weapon, her prior dilemmas are unexpectedly solved. To to the side of District 8 (well, District 8's body) is a duffle bag. It wasn't in her sightline before, but now that it is, Kim seizes it and jogs back to her pine place, eagerly unzipping. Inside is one hefty filled canteen with water and a generous packet of trail mix. There's also a change of clothes, a roll of wire and an awl.

Something like this_ treasure_ must've been at the very nucleus of the cornucopia! She can't help wondering which one of them snagged it. Or perhaps neither of them did, initially. Perhaps they took it from another tribute(s). Kim drinks deeply, closing her eyes and enjoying the precious find much more than she morally ought to.

.

Armed with supplies, Kim feels confident enough to leave. Her new aim is to find real shelter.

She finds Violette instead.

Ash pools widen to moons in a face caked with mud and equally muddy diminutive limbs quake with terror because Kim has the spear, and Kim is zeroing in on her where she kneels in a gully, and she has _nothing_ and she simply _cannot_ win. "I don't want to suffer," she says quickly after what must be a full minute of primal fear. "Please just make it quick, I don't want to suffer."

Kim...Kim should do what she says. She should thrust the spear right through Violette's heart and make it fast, make it painless. But instead she lowers her weapon.

"Let's be allies," she tells her.

She shouldn't do this. She shouldn't tug Violette along like this, because at the end there can only be one victor and she's going to have to put her down like a horse with a busted leg eventually. Now would be better. Save themselves both the prolonged forgone conclusion.

Violette blinks up at her dubiously, waiting for several moments as though she expects Kim is just playing with her like a cat batting at an injured mouse. But Kim makes no movement.

Violette slowly bobs her head in a nod.

.

Violette is surprisingly good at navigating the woods. She's aware of where both District 4 tributes are, informs Kim of where the alliance between Male District 9, Female and Male District 3, and Female District 10 have been hunting. She knows to avoid the northwestern stretch of trees, because it's a trap that ends in a steep landslide, where a crippled-and-slowly-dying District 2 male lies.

She takes Kim right to the cave she's been sleeping in. With the spool of wire Kim now has, they set up snares in the surrounding trees to catch prey and set up snares outside the cave's entrance to catch tributes. Afterward they recline against a wall of the cave shoulder-to-shoulder, and Kim shares her trail mix.

"Thank you," Violette mumbles with granola crumbs on her delicate lips. She eats very quickly, ravenously, as though she hasn't had anything else and it might be her last meal all the same. This could be true.

"Don't thank me," Kim mutters sternly. She's going to kill Violette at some point, she doesn't need any sweet undeserved 'thank-yous' to heap atop the inevitable damnation.

Violette flinches and lowers her eyes. She doesn't speak another word.

"You surprised me," Kim breathes on a pointedly lighter note. "Knowing so much about what's where and all."

"I watch people," Violette murmurs simply. "Ever since I was young, I was never good at talking with people, so I always watched them instead. I still do. And I watch places too."

'Ever since I was young,' lingers in Kim's ears because Violette still is _young_, damn it! She is young and Kim is young, and they should have so much time to do other things and really meet each other, but that's all taken away from them. Here they are, young and able, but turned against each other and assigned to death for the entertainment of the rich and a statement to the poor.

"That's a really good skill," Kim compliments earnestly and gently ruffles her hair. It must tickle because Violette giggles happily, the sound bubbly and sweet. Listening to it is pouring peach nectar down one's ear canal.

At night, they curl up close. Another cannon thunders outside the walls of their flimsy safe haven and Violette curls up even closer, tucking her pretty nose into the crook of Kim's neck, hooking her arms under Kim's to hug her behind the shoulder blades, and tangling her legs with Kim's. She clings and Kim clutches her tightly around the waist, offering her this temporary security and warmth wholeheartedly.

(If only they weren't here.)

"I'm happy you're here, Kim." Violette's breath fogs against her neck. Her voice is tight, weary. "I was too scared to sleep last night."

"Have good dreams," Kim croons and strokes her back reassuringly.

But even as she wishes otherwise, she knows Violette will have nightmares.

.

Vehement cursing wakes them both up just a little after the crack of dawn. Violette gasps aloud and clenches her digits into Kim's shirt, her dirty fingernails pressing through the fabric and nearly breaking skin.

Kim steels and quietly untwines herself from Violette. Outside the cursing continues, snarly and furious and distinctly female. Kim picks up the spear and slinks to the mouth of the cave. There's the girl from District 2, hanging upside down from a tree. Or rather, hanging upside down with her ankle in the wire snare Kim and Violette rigged to suspend her from said tree.

Kinky cornsilk falls from District 2's reddened face in matted tangles, aquamarine eyes blazing in annoyance as she struggles to free herself and continues spitting out coarse curses. Kim casts a fleeting glance back to Violette.

She settles her gaze on District 2 once more.

The career doesn't see Kim until Kim is raising the spear. When she does, her upside down mouth falls slack and her irises expand as her pupils shrink.

"Charlotte!" she bellows right from the gut in naked terror "Kentin! Charlotte!"

Kim races forward and rams the spearhead right through District 2's screeching mouth. As the tendrils of her tongue tear, there is a sloshy squelch of a sound like driving a knife through a rotten grapefruit. It yields to a moist rip as Kim tears it free and raindrops of ruby splatter. She doesn't wait for the tribute to die, she swivels back and peels for Violette.

"We gotta go," she barks to her petite, frightened ally, and pointedly grabs her by the arm when she doesn't move a muscle in the following millisecond. It's a good thing Violette was already clutching onto the duffle.

They dash from the cave and don't look back. The cannon broadcasts District 2's end. Kim and Violette manage to duck out before her allies follow her screams.

That is, if they ever do at all.

.

"How many times have you killed?" Violette chews her lip as she stares at Kim, phony moonlight sparkling in her ashes. Perturbation rolls off of her in waves and if it's because of the question or because of the fact they're out in the open, Kim isn't sure.

"Twice," she answers honestly.

Violette nods slowly.

"You haven't killed at all?"

"N-No..."

Kim squeezes her shoulder. If she can help it, she'll make sure Violette never has to kill. Violette initially goes rigid at the touch, but before Kim can apologize and pull away, she relaxes. She slides onto the grass and brushes against Kim on the way down, amethyst tresses splaying out behind her head. One of her tiny hands seeks out Kim's and small fingers tap against her knuckles.

"I wish the stars were real," she breathes, eyeing the sky of black and sliver-pinpricked lies above.

"Yeah?" Kim asks, shifting her gaze up.

Violette stops tapping her knuckles and loosely intertwines their fingers. "Yeah. I wonder if it's really night back home..."

_She's never going to see home again_, Kim mentally laments as her heart cracks again.

"I love the real stars," Violette goes on. "I map them sometimes. Even when I don't, I just like to look at them."

"They're pretty, " Kim replies in earnest.

"Yes. But as much as I love them, I think I love the clouds more. The real clouds, I mean. Not the ones here in the arena." Violette sighs quietly. "The ones here are too fluffy and they're always the same shape. The real ones change. They swirl, they fatten, they make shapes. I'd like to climb a ladder tall enough to touch them. I'd shape them myself."

"I'd build you that ladder," Kim murmurs and is only mildly surprised to discover she means it. "I'd build you that ladder if I could."

Violette smiles at her genuinely and without any trace of reservation, an expression of pure blissful warmth unfurling on her merry lips. She holds Kim's hand tighter.

Kim kisses the corner of her mouth very gently. Violette's smile broadens.

And then Kim thinks she might scratch the goal of becoming a victor. She'll still aim to win, but maybe, just maybe she'll aim to win it for Violette. She wonders if she could off herself if it came to that.

And then she wonders if she would.

.

She holds Violette even closer that night. Their bodies merge almost seamlessly even though they're cutting off each other's circulation and without any shelter to protect from the biting wind and/or threat of tributes.

.

"I'm going to go check the traps," Kim declares in the morning when the trail mix has been eaten down to the last half-handful.

"It's dangerous back there," Violette protests uneasily, twiddling her fingers.

"Yeah, and I'm gonna go back there and make it even more dangerous." Kim grins and ruffles Violette's hair.

Violette seems uncertain, but she doesn't argue anymore. She's passive, Kim knows. Kim tenderly punches her in the shoulder. "I know you don't want to split up, I don't either. But we have to eat, and there's no sense in letting prey that might already be there go to waste. And if I don't get it soon, it won't be fresh enough to eat."

"I know," Violette mumbles in resignation. She tries to smile for Kim's sake.

"Finish off the trail mix," Kim tells her and pushes the packet into her grasp. "I'll be back soon, okay?" Kim can't promise that. Violette knows Kim can't promise that. But she kisses her anyway.

Kim cups her cheek for a moment, as supple and pleasing to hold a sun-warmed apricot, even when it's streaked in dirt and etched in scrapes. She kisses her back. The kiss is warm, soft like freshly-dried linen. For that one moment, there is an unknowable connection as powerful as thunderstorms and gentle as dandelion seeds on the summer breeze. For that moment, they are whole.

She fondly plays with a strand of Violette's hair and then departs.

Kim remembers where the traps are well enough, even if she doesn't have Violette's sense of navigation. She finds the first two with little difficulty, though she's disappointed to discover them empty. It takes her a little longer to locate the third one, and with her impatience climbing, she's almost inclined to give up. It's a good thing she doesn't, as when Kim does find the trap, it is full. Full of fresh groundhog.

Kim grins and crouches, satisfaction alighting her down to the fingertips as she works it free.

A faint scream in the distance reaches Kim's ears and impales Kim's heart with an icicle, her stomach turned to lead because that scream is _Violette's_ scream.

She abandons the groundhog and streaks away, strides long and freezing heart pounding frenziedly in her ears.

.

The cannon goes off when Kim is three-fourths of the way there. She doesn't need to look to the (un)sky to know it's Violette.

.

She makes it to Violette before the hovercraft does, and by now her cheeks are slick with tears she doesn't remember beginning to shed and her chest muscles are contracting knots and little animal noises are leaving her throat in tight hiccups, there's nothing to do, there's nothing and she—

_I didn't even get to say goodbye. _

Kim falls to her knees before Violette's unmoving form and takes her teeny pale hand, like squeezing it might bring her back. There's still a little bit of warmth left beneath her dead skin, and that makes Kim feel even sicker than the sight of the arrow poking out of her stomach and tumbling intestines does. She traces Violette's jawline with a ginger knuckle and then holds her cheek as she did before she left her, just a few short hours ago.

So much can happen in so little time.

Violette's end was just as unimportant and perfunctory as any, and Kim wasn't there to say goodbye, adhere her last words, or protect her with her own life to prevent this. Which she realizes now, she would've. Last night she wasn't sure whether or not she would sacrifice herself, whether or not she would make sure Violette was the victor. And now...Now, when her throat is raw and phlegmy with sobs and Violette is so, so still and bloody with eyelids only half-closed, Kim realizes she would have.

She would've built Violette a ladder to survival with the corpses of other tributes and turned herself into the last rung. She would've made sure Violette was safe.

Except she didn't.

.

Lasting was Kim's initial strategy. Now it's hunting. She finds and eliminates the District 5 male, Dajan, District 8 female, and District 7 female in that order. She spears District 5 through the back of the neck when he's climbing a tree, for whatever reason. It's effortless on her part because he's careless, and it means nothing and the part of her that died when she killed Male 8 is still dead, but no other parts of her join it.

She takes Dajan out with the awl. She never planned on using it as a weapon, but their paths cross and he tears the spear from her grasp with a ferocity she was unwise not to expect in him. They struggle for awhile, grappling with each other and punching and grunting and kicking. It's when Dajan's fingers encircle her throat and squeeze that Kim plunges the awl into his heart. His grip slackens and he flops atop her bonelessly, and this, this is gross, but it's nowhere near as gross as the way heat lingered under Violette's expired flesh.

She feels a prick of sorrow as she rolls him off and the cannon announces his end. She knew Dajan from home, after all. They weren't close, but still, he was from home. He was from home and they saw each other a few times a week and traded hellos and waves. Dajan was routine, and now, thanks to her, he's not anything. But the prick of sorrow is just that— a prick.

Kim gets up and carries on.

The District 8 female is on her guard when Kim discovers her shelter in a rotted out log. She's fast to scramble away and grabs her sword and attacks Kim head on with ardent slices. However, Kim still has the longer weapon. She buries it in 8's eye as 8 realizes her misjudgment and Kim become aware that she's oozing ruby from a slash in her gut. A moderate wound. Possibly fatal if she doesn't take care of it. But whether it's endorphins or just plain jaded numbness, it isn't painful.

Kim blots it with the extra shirt in the duffle bag and carries on.

The District 7 girl has a bow.

_The District 7 girl has a bow. _

Kim shatters and hardens at the same time, eyes narrowing and misting as the image of the arrow in Violette's spilled stomach flashes through her mind. Kim doesn't fight the girl from District 7 with the spear. She runs. She runs too fast for District 7 to get a clear shot from the distance, and District 7 runs after her in accordance. Lungs heaving and muscles trembling with rage, Kim charges into the northwestern stretch of trees.

She veers away before she can fall into the landslide, but Female 7 isn't that fortunate. She sails down the steep dip head over heels, bow flying from her hands and arrows spilling out of the quiver. She smacks and bounces against the ground and Kim listens to every satisfying crack until she anchors at the bottom with a flat thud. Her crooked limbs are twisted beneath her and protruding bones provide obstacles for crimson to rivulet around. She groans in agony; just like a colicky bovine and Kim cracks a grin.

This one will suffer. She hopes this one suffers for a good long while.

.

Kim's success comes to an end when she seeks out the District 4 tributes.

.

It's the male that gets her. He's the good looking one, sun-bleached blonde hair, crisp tan skin, and sea-foam green eyes that the sponsors all fawn over. They've sent him a trident. Kim is drawing her arm back to launch the spear into the seemingly unaware female when he kebabs her from behind. The tearing of her own flesh reaches her ears before the pain reaches her nerves, and when it does, Kim is unprepared.

Explosions of agony soar from her center and sear her into a waxing blindness. The spear simply falls from her hand and clatters to the earth. She looks down and sees the three lethal points of gold sticking right out of her abdomen. Except the gold isn't gold, it's red with her blood.

Then the points disappear because Male 4 jerks the weapon out of her. A sharp, jutted sound is torn from Kim's lips as she flops backward to the dirt. The fall rattles her bones and the blood just keeps jetting out.

"Nice try," 4 scoffs.

The words are barely discernible over the pain, but when they register Kim finds that she agrees with him. Yeah, it was a 'nice try' wasn't it? She gave it her all...She put in her effort, she went down fighting. Not a perfect try, no, she didn't build Violette the ladder of bodies to victory. She didn't save her, didn't realize she wanted to save her, and now she can't even save herself.

But she'd much rather build Violette a ladder to the clouds anyway. She's knows Violette would rather climb a ladder to the clouds too. As her life pools out and she drifts away Kim thinks that maybe next time — if there is a next time, she can.

Next time she'll do it right.


End file.
